PALESTINE: Ever Been To Nablus In Palestine? - Hallo friendsLET'S HEALTHY LIFE, In the article you read this time with the title PALESTINE: Ever Been To Nablus In Palestine?, We have prepared this article for you to read and retrieve information therein. Hopefully the contents of postings Article cough, Article diabetes, Article diseases, Article in general, Article Phytotherapy, Article skin diseases, We write this you can understand. Alright, good read.

Title : PALESTINE: Ever Been To Nablus In Palestine?
link : PALESTINE: Ever Been To Nablus In Palestine?

PALESTINE: Ever Been To Nablus In Palestine?

There was a time when Na­blus in the northern Pal­estinian territories was not a place for leisurely wandering. During the Israeli invasion at the height of the second intifada in 2002, the city suf­fered badly. Many buildings were bombed and people killed.

Today, Nablus is a happier place and the continued Israeli military occupation of the West Bank is not stopping the defiant city’s growth.

Since last December, Nablus has been twinned with Boulder, Colo­rado, in the United States, and April features the second Nablus Festi­val, celebrating local and interna­tional literature, visual art and mu­sic in venues across the city.

Preparations were under way re­cently with bunting fluttering in the breeze above the Old City’s winding streets.

Venues, including the Khan al Wakala, a caravanserai that was reopened in 2012 after a restoration funded by the local council and the European Union, were preparing to welcome artists ranging from tradi­tional dabke dance performers to Belgian choirs.

Away from the tourist trappings of Bethlehem and Jerusalem, which draw the majority of visitors to the territories, Nablus is a working city that has retained its elegance de­spite military incursions.

Its net­work of khans, mosques, souks and working hammams may be smaller than those that weave the streets of Baghdad, Sana’a or Cairo but Nab­lus is every bit as captivating.

The city is known as “little Da­mascus,” thanks to its Ottoman-era architecture, similar to that of the Syrian capital, and its reputation as a centre of learning.

Its Souk al-Ta­jari, a covered area where material and clothing sellers are clustered, is even known as “Souk al Hamidi­yeh,” after the roofed market in the centre of Damascus.

“The hammams of Nablus and Damascus are like one,” said Adel al-Lubada, who works in Hammam al-Hana, one of the city’s public bathhouses.

Although he said most of the cli­entele were people from outside the city and he bemoaned the lack of official or government financial help for restoration and operating costs, he said he believed the ham­mam would stay open.

“There is a future here. Young people come here before their wed­dings with their friends, eat, cele­brate, relax in the hammam. People don’t talk politics here. It is a place for relaxing.”

Nablus’s other working bath house, the 17th-century Ash-Shifa, was hit by Israeli rockets in 2002, damaging the roofs of the steam chambers.

The missiles, which nar­rowly missed a party of 40 people who left 5 minutes before the at­tack, caused about $40,000 worth of damage.

The hammam has been returned to its former glory, with thick, hot black and white marble tiles, ready for the day’s customers.

Bath access costs about $10 and a 30-minute massage is $14 extra. Post-scrub, shisha, tea and coffee are at hand.

Nablus also remains a hub of Pal­estinian industry, echoing its past as a trading point for soap, olive oil and cotton across the Levant.

Basil Break owns the Break Mill, opened by his family in 1936 in a 400-year-old building near the city’s Al-Khadra Mosque, suppos­edly where Prophet Jacob wept af­ter discovering the death of his son Joseph.

Originally a coffee and spice mill, the shop sells those products along­side a small museum displaying ob­jects from Palestinian villages.

We created this to show off old ways of working and crafts in Pal­estine, explained Break, perched next to a low-slung, faded sofa.

My favourite object is the coffee grind­er — the mehbaj. I like people from outside coming to my city — visi­tor numbers are weak and we want more to come. There is safety and stability here now.

At the Al-Aqsa Bakery on Al- Naser Street, the smell of hot sug­ar wafts from giant lily pad-like metal trays. The establishment is renowned for knafeh, the Nab­lusi pastry made from soft cheese, wheat and syrup.

The huddles of waiting customers say something about the quality.

We don’t count how many knafeh we make in a day but we finish one every 5-10 minutes, said Majdi Abu Hamdi, pointing at one of the metre-wide pastries and slicing it into portions.

This crowd is nothing. Sometimes there is a queue down the street, added the seller, who has been working at Al- Aqsa for 45 years.

Nablus remains a place that sparks immense pride. If I leave Nablus for one week, I find myself wanting to come back, said an ambulance driver and shopkeeper in the Old City.

I want my children to go to study in Germany but I want them to come back here to Nablus and develop and improve this place. I live with this city, and I am proud of that.

Thus Article PALESTINE: Ever Been To Nablus In Palestine?

That's an article PALESTINE: Ever Been To Nablus In Palestine? This time, hopefully can give benefits to all of you. well, see you in posting other articles.

You are now reading the article PALESTINE: Ever Been To Nablus In Palestine? with the link address https://letslifes.blogspot.com/2017/06/palestine-ever-been-to-nablus-in.html

Tweet

Subscribe to receive free email updates: